10 Yay! Final Blog Post

I am completely amazed at how much I learned from this week's interactive PowerPoint assignment. I created a Jeopardy game using a template I found online and what seemed like an assignment that was going to be a bit annoying and completely daunting turned out to be really enjoyable! I am so proud of how my game turned out. One of the skills that I learned was how to use the kiosk mode in PowerPoint. I never even knew this was an option! I also learned how to use and add navigation tools to the slides. I used the home button and the question button a lot in my PowerPoint. I used the home button to return to the Jeopardy slide that lists the categories and the points they are worth. Because the answers on Jeopardy are given in a question format, I used the question mark button to link to the response that the student would give in a question form such as "Who is...". Hopefully in the future I can use my skills to create a fun learning activity like this for my students. One thing I could do in the future to improve my skills is create a game completely from scratch without a template. That sounds a little scary but I think with some patience I could do it. Check out my awesome Jeopardy game! Didn't it turn out amazing?!

I think it would be great to use data collection tools like online surveys to get a feel for what students are and are not understanding. If I was a 5th grade teacher I could create a survey asking students questions regarding American History and the results of the survey would give me specific data of what questions students were answering incorrectly/correctly and how many students chose each answer choice. This could help me better tailor review sessions to their needs before tests and maybe I could even create another Jeopardy game to review the topics they are having trouble grasping!

One of the topics that I thought was interesting when viewing my classmates' blogs was how large of a variety there was between our individual skill sets. Some of us have had formal training from high school technology classes while others have been self-taught or are just unfamiliar with most technology programs outside of using Microsoft Word to type an essay. Another thing that always interested me was when we would all post screenshots of the finished product of our assignments. I loved looking at everything that was created and gathering ideas from those to use in the future. It was always inspiring to see how amazingly well some people had designed their assignments and made me want to strive to reach that standard myself.

The technology-related skill that I would most like to learn next is Photoshop. I took a digital design class about 4 years ago in high school and I always enjoyed how the final product of our creations turned out. I would really like to brush up on my past skills as I would not even remember where to start in Photoshop anymore and then expand upon those skills to design things for my classroom. I could design class decorations, posters of class rules, and creative flyers of weekly announcements to send home with my students.

My future educational technology goals are to implement the great strategies I have learned in EME2040 in my own class room in the next few years. I have learned so many valuable skills in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel that could greatly enhance the impact of the information I will be conveying to my students. It will also improve my performance as a teacher because I now know little tips and tricks to aid in my professional development so I can live up to my fullest potential as a teacher. I can't wait to teach my students how to blog and create their own projects using ever-changing technology. I will also be creating a website and twitter for my class to keep the parents up to date with announcements and be able to share fun pictures of their children enjoying their learning experience. Thank you Professor Cates for being so patient and understanding with us and giving us such valuable tools to help us become amazing future teachers!